


The Last Reason

by orphan_account



Category: Avengers, Avengers (Comics), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, but here it is anyway, so deal with it, there is no excuse for this kind of drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 06:42:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A supposedly simple mission, meant to go off without a hitch, ends badly, and sparks a million unanswered questions in its aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Reason

**Author's Note:**

> Ordinarily, I try to avoid drabble pieces, but that's what this in essence. Well. Sue me, then. It's fairly old, but I've been kicking myself for hesitating to post anything for so long, so here it is!

The mission isn't a particularly remarkable one; in fact, compared to threats the team has faced before, it's positively tame.

Coulson debriefed them earlier on in the morning with the bare facts. A human trafficker, Imre Rokov, had been evading capture for the better part of a year now, but the disappearances of several women-young, predominantly adolescent-were linked with his name. Intelligence pointed toward his spending the weekend at the heart of the city, where blending in amidst the constant throng of tourists would likely prove a fairly simple task.

Where S.H.I.E.L.D. had failed, JARVIS managed to locate his exact position-down to the coordinates, in fact-with a brief sweep of the area. Their objective is to isolate and restrain him without attracting attention from passerby, and to ensure that he remains living long enough to answer questions.

The plan is simple enough. Natasha will draw him out of the open, as she has always been capable of doing so neatly; Clint will be waiting for his chance to shoot-with an arrow meant to electrocute and temporarily paralyze, not to kill. The others, in the meanwhile, will be tracking down his bodyguards, who are sure to be strewn about nearby, ensuring that one of them doesn't escape to compromise the operation.

Clint would be lying if he claimed he was comfortable with Natasha's seemingly constant obligation to seduce utter strangers. Perhaps it's a childish sort of jealousy; after all, the two have only ever communicated in stolen glances and innocent flirtations that their relationship is anything more than a partnership, albeit a close one-and besides, he very much doubts she has any real interest in the thugs and business tycoons and killers she wraps around her little pinky finger, even if the look on her face as she bats her eyes at them is sometimes a bit too convincing for his taste.

Swearing under his breath at his own stupidity, Clint pushes the thought from his mind and suits up with the others. He falls easily into the familiar motions-choosing the arrows for his quiver, testing the tension in his bowstring, sliding on an arm guard, and a padded glove-and it soothes him slightly.

The others aren't there yet when he arrives, but he puts it down to the fact that their suits are far more invasive than his-save, of course, for Bruce's, although he's elected to sit this one out; an enormous green man tends to take away from any attempts, however sincere, to undergo covert operations.

The first sign of Natasha's approach is the sound of heels, clicking briskly against the steely silver floor. For a moment, he'd forgotten that this is one of the many jobs for which a catsuit wouldn't suffice-but it doesn't take much to jolt his memory back on track. She hesitates at the door, steadying her hip against the frame, and it gives Clint a moment to look at her-really, truly _look_ at her.

At the sight of her, his thoughts flit back to the days of her stint as Stark's assistant-stockinged feet, pencil skirts, stilettos, lacy blouses. Her hair has been arranged in curls that brush artfully against her shoulder, her full lips reddened. On anyone else, the outfit might have seemed almost conservative-but on Natasha, Clint can't help but grudgingly admit that it's an undeniable invitation; the black skirt hugs her hips in all the right places, and the ruffles in her shirt catch right beneath her chest, the cut of it just a shade too low to be considered utterly proper.

He catches his breath-softly, a sound that's hardly audible-and is reminded how deadly alert Natasha's senses are, despite whatever identity she's playing at today. She glances up sharply, but when she meets his eyes, her gaze softens into something playful.

"You're _staring_ , Barton." she tells him, crossing the room and coming to a stop only inches from where he stands.

Clint manages to tear his eyes away from the way her hips sway as she walks, but not quite fast enough to retain his dignity; the very thought frustrates him to no end. He's undoubtedly caught her staring before, after all. On more than one occasion, during a match, when his shirt lays abandoned in a corner and his body is slick with sweat, she's turned her gaze on him, not bothering with denial. There's such calm, cool matter-of-factness to the way she watches him, when she does; Clint, though, inevitably becomes flustered under her penetrating stare, and he hates himself for it.

"You're _cocky_ , Romanoff." he replies-not with acid, but with a devilish grin that makes her roll her eyes skyward.

She seems on the verge of a reply when someone's voice interjects, echoing in the corridor behind them, "Natalie, Natalie, Natalie. How lovely to see you again. It's been too long." Tony emerges in full armor, his arms spread wide in greeting; Steve, behind him, looks so put upon that it's almost comedic.

"Actually, it's Anastasia today." Natasha corrects, unruffled, as the two draw nearer. "Do you really think I'm unprofessional enough to use the same alias twice?"

"C'mon, Mata Hari; d'you think I have _any_ idea how you work?" As Natasha appraises him coolly, he adds, "Definitely digging the outfit though. Very classy, very revealing. A+"

"Stark, do you _ever_ know when to stop talking?" Steve interjects, and the expression on his face is strange when his glance flickers toward Natasha and back again-as though he's caught somewhere between sympathy on her behalf, and irritation on Tony's.

At this, Clint can't bite back a snort, and Natasha tosses him a look that's stern, though halfheartedly, as though to say _Are you really that immature?_

He restrains the urge to put his tongue out at her and merely winks. Natasha seems to accept this wearily as confirmation.

"Are you boys, ready?" she asks pointedly, arching a scarlet brow as Tony and Steve fall once again into heated debate.

Already at the door, Tony powers up and shoots upward like a bullet. "Way ahead of you," he taunts, his voice crackly over the chips the group wears in their ears.

Steve glances over his shoulder, pained, before following. Clint watches him go until he rounds a bend, disappearing from view, and it isn't until Natasha bumps him with her hip that he comes back to himself.

"C'mon," She draws away, paces a few steps ahead, and beckons over her shoulder. "We've got work to do."

Though his stomach turns-stupidly, evidently unavoidably-at the thought of the task ahead of her, he doesn't think he indicates it physically; then again, he wasn't trained in Soviet Russia to read emotions on a man's body as easily as words on a page, and Natasha was. She turns to him, the beginnings of that infuriating smirk of hers playing across her lips. "Something wrong?" she asks, seemingly earnest, in the voice he knows so well, slightly rough, low-a layer of silent laughter, hidden beneath; it's almost as though she knows exactly what's eating at him, and the fact that she's chosen not to tease him for it makes Clint wonder whether or not it's so ridiculous after all.

No, it definitely is.

"Not really," he feigns a casual drawl. "Why? _You_ nervous, Tasha?"

"Not at all. This is nothing new for us." she reminds him, strangely serious, pausing in the doorway to turn to him.

If he were clever, or tactful, or even remotely adequate at navigating social situations, Clint might have let the matter rest there; he knew Natasha, perhaps better than anyone else, and if he had learned anything in the years they had spent together as partners, it was that she loathed being probed. The few secrets she had told him hadn't slipped from her lips, unbidden; she had given the matter thought before revealing anything, and it was that which made the fact all the more meaningful in Clint's mind. When she didn't want to say something, no amount of wheedling would draw it out of her; that was what made her an excellent undercover agent and manipulator, just as it made having her as a partner and friend endlessly frustrating.

Even knowing all of that, though, he couldn't help but ask, "Doesn't it bother you? Fooling around with all these guys you don't even know? Especially when they're all such asswipes."

He's horrified at having said it, but manages to pass it off as an easygoing wondering, aware that there's no taking back what's already been done. Clint half expects her to ignore him, or pass it off with a taunting remark. Instead, she eyes him searchingly for a moment, almost as though she's expecting to find something telling in his face. Then, finally, her brow furrowed, she replies, "You know they don't mean anything to me, Clint. None of them ever do."

It's a logical enough response, and yet for some reason, it sounds strangely personal on her lips; she's looking at him still; so careful, waiting. He wants to ask, _Does anyone?_ He wants to ask, _Do I?_

"Guess I'm just jealous that I have to snipe and you get to schmooze." he says finally instead, falling back on a joke as he always does when he's at a loss as to any alternative. Natasha seems to take this in her stride, and her face closes off again; the eyes harden, lips pull into an impersonal smile, and she nods almost absently. "Right," he mutters, breaking the silence, "Well. You're up."

She sends him a smile over her shoulder, but he watches her long after she turns away, watches until the crowd swallows her up and the only indication he has of her presence is the sound of her soft, steady breathing in his earpiece.

Natasha is reeling as she walks, her mind flitting from one thought to another in a half daze. Now isn't the time, she knows, to lack in concentration. Now isn't the time to wonder what Clint meant when he asked her those questions-or why the expression on his face was so deeply, unfathomably concerned, angry, even hurt. Clint is her opposite in every way possible. Where she plots and plans and strategizes, he dives in headfirst. Where she pulls away, he reaches out.

The problem is, she's beginning to reach with him- _for_ him-and she doesn't know what that means for him, and especially doesn't know what it means for her.

When Clint Barton first nocked an arrow and aimed it at her throat, she could never in her wildest dreams have imagined the way, mere years later, the familiar sound of his footsteps; the touch of his calloused hands; the throwaway confidence in his grin, would make her want simultaneously to beat him senseless, and to throw herself into his arms.

It's maddening, when in life Natasha has only ever wanted for one thing-for control.

Her speed quickens, and the crowd parts almost sub-consciously for her as she threads through the thicket of people. When she sees him-that face, an unmistakable match to the one Coulson had shown her earlier, in the debriefing room-it isn't at all difficult, swept up in anger and adrenaline and uncertainty, to keep her eyes on the sidewalk and smack headfirst into him.

"Watch where the hell you're goi-Oh miss, I'm sorry; are you alright?"

Fleetingly, and even scathingly, Natasha wonders whether he would change his tune so quickly if she were a teenager, or another man. At the sight of her, though, he immediately pretends at a warm smile, and she can't complain; it's no doubt what she was aiming for, after all.  
"I'm sorry. That was my fault," she murmurs low in her throat as he helps her to her feet. "I'm so clumsy."

In reality, Natasha is as clumsy as one would expect of a master acrobat, but Rokov keeps his sugary smile in place as he reaches over to help her to her feet.  
He would be handsome-tall, fair skinned, with dark, serious eyes and an easy smile-but there's something greasy and unsavory about him that makes one want to recoil.

"The fault is mine," he corrects her, threading her smaller hand in his. "And the pleasure, if I may. What is your name, miss?"  
Natasha thinks wryly that he's making all of this far too easy-but in any event, it's good to have something to focus on; Clint is breathing rather too heavily in her ear on the other line, and she's not sure what to do with the sneaking suspicion that he's jealous.

"Anastasia Kozlova," she replies, and though her voice is forcedly soft and even gentle, she sets her lips in such a way that he leans in closer, almost hungrily. "And yours?"

"Kozlov. You are of Russia, too, then? I am Ivan Volkov."

"My family is Russian-but I was born in America," she lies, as easily as he did mere moments ago. "I-" She glances over her shoulder, then back to Rokov again, as though she longs to stay. "I really should be going."

"Nonsense," he interjects, "I insist on buying you a drink. Do you think it too early for a vodka?"

"It's difficult to resist the temptation." she admits. "But really, I should be going..."

Dusk finds them pressed up against the brick wall of a back alley, sequestered, utterly alone. He's nothing if not persistent, and though Natasha tries to waste as much time as possible toying with him, Rokov's hands are already exploring-snaking down her skirt, sliding beneath her bra and cupping one breast firmly.  
She's more than accustomed to allowing a man to believe he is pleasuring her, even when she would rather be a million miles away; it's difficult though, at the moment, to force the noises she knows Rokov wants to hear from her. Somehow, the presence of Clint on the other line is impossible to disregard.  
Then, something happens that never has before; he speaks, even as Rokov runs a hand through her hair and presses his lips to hers.

"Sounds like you're having a lot of fun."

Natasha's eyes snap open in disbelief, and it's all she can do to pass it off as the excitement of the moment-which, unfortunately, only encourages Rokov all the more. There's no way to communicate with Clint in the midst of all this-which, of course, he knows just as well as she does. Why he's being so stupid and spiteful, she can't imagine-or perhaps she can, though she doesn't want to ruminate on it.

Instead, she says breathily, "Mmm, Ivan, it's so _quiet_. No one here, but the two of us." forcing herself to melt into his touch, as though the very press of his body against hers is spellbinding.

The message is for Clint, and it reads loud and clear. _Keep your mouth shut. I'm working._

He huffs, but falls quiet, and Natasha can't help the reluctant smile that tugs at her lips as she pictures him, crouching in the darkness, readying his bow for a clean shot.

And suddenly, she's not in Rokov's arms anymore; she's in his-in _Clint's_. She would know it anywhere, by the calloused roughness of his hands; the solidity, the sweet, dependable firmness, of his chest beneath her hands.

Natasha can't help a sharp intake of breath at the realization of what she's doing-and Rokov draws back, holding her at arm's length, one brow raised in surprise.  
She glances up at him, and her lips part, then come together again, the words never leaving her lips-because something in his expression has changed, and she doesn't like the implications of it.

"Tasha?" Clint asks in her ear, suddenly alert. Though she can't reply, she breathes heavily, and his sigh of relief makes it plain that he understands she's still there.

"Natalia." Her name comes again, but this time from a different voice-deeper, more resonant, and cruel. "Little Natalia Romanova; so the rumors are true. You have abandoned your country, your people. стыдно." _For shame._

Her head spins.

How does he know? How could he possibly know?

"Is it true, that every man the Widow sleeps with dies soon after? What luck we never made it that far, lovely though you undoubtedly are."  
Clint is tense, silent-listening with growing anger.

"I'm flattered, Imre." Natasha replies smoothly, recovering herself swiftly as ever. "I only wish I could say the same."  
Rokov doesn't seem surprised at her use of his true name, nor does he so much as flinch at the insult. "I wonder how much they would pay for you on the market." he wonders aloud, running the back of his hand along her jawline.

 _Too far._ One step too far.

Natasha's hand darts out, takes him by the arm, and flips him on his back. Her red curls come free of their pins and hang in a tousled halo about her face as she pins him to the ground, the heel of her stiletto pressing hard into his chest.  
His grin remains in place, even then, and he watches her, his head against the cement, as one might a child at play. "стыдно" he says again, his voice a hiss of pain as her heel digs in harder.

On the rooftop, Clint takes aim. Below him, so does Rokov.

The 9 millimeter glints briefly beneath the street lights as he draws it from the pocket of his blazer and shoots, nearly dead center.  
Seconds later, an arrow finds his heart. Coulson will be disappointed; the arrow is a true one, and where it hits, blood blossoms. Rokov isn't paralyzed; he's dead.  
And Natasha is on her way to joining him.

Her eyes widen with shock as she looks down at her chest, and the tendrils of red that reach out in every direction from the wound, like the petals of a flower unfurling. Then her knees give way, and she drops.

Clint's hands are shaking too hard for him to set up the rappelling gear, but he's only a few stories up, so he bolts down the fire escape, wondering vaguely how he's managing to walk at all when he can hardly feel his legs beneath him.

Tony and Steve are speaking in his ear, but for all the world it's as though there's no one alive but him; their words move right through him without leaving any mark.

He reaches her at a run and drops to his knees in a near skid so that the knees of his pants tear on contact, but Clint hardly notices. His hands hover over her chest, touch her lightly, then withdraw again, as though he can hardly believe what he's seeing; what he's touching.

"Clint," she chokes out hoarsely, and it hits him like a knife to the back that her eyes-chips of turquoise, once so feverishly bright-are pale, and glassy. "Is he dead?"

"Who gives a shit, Nat?" he breaths, and his hand comes away bloody from her breast.

" _Clint_ ," she hisses, so intently that he crawls on hands and knees to Rokov's body, turns it over on its side, and presses sticky red fingers to its neck.

"No pulse," he tells her, and she chokes on a Russian swear that he probably wouldn't understand even if she had managed to say it aloud.

"He was supposed to live," Natasha mutters, and she tries to prop herself up against the wall, but the movement is too much for her, and she falls helplessly, frustratedly still.

Clint wants to scream _You were supposed to live_ , but somewhere, in the back of his mind, he fears that saying those words will make them true.

"Try not to talk," he says instead, forcing a calm that he doesn't feel, disregarding impatiently the fear that weighs down his very bones.

"Stark, Rogers. We need medics _now_."

Neither seemed entirely clear on what was going on, but the confirmation came so quickly that the urgency must have been plain in his voice.  
Beneath him, Natasha's skin is white as snow; a trickle of blood escapes the hollow of her ear, and he knows from experience exactly what that means. His heart jolts.

In any other moment, he would have hesitated-but now, without thinking, he catches her slender hand in his own; surprisingly, she squeezes back with all the strength she has left.

It's impossibly difficult watching her, seeing her this way. The vibrance is gone from her eyes, the remnants of the smirk that once made his skin tingle at the very sight buried beneath a grimace of pain.

"Hang in there, Nat, alright? The docs are coming."

Somehow, through the pain, she manages a smile that's fond and patronizing all at once.

"Not in time, Barton," she breathes, and he can see what an effort those few words cost her.

The blood pools beneath her, an awful puddle of red, a shade deeper than the ringlets, once perfect, that are matted to her forehead now with sweat.  
"Don't talk like that," he says sharply. "They'll be here any second. Just be patient."

That infuriating smile resurfaces, and he can almost here her mutter an exasperated _Oh, Clint_ though now she can't afford to waste any breath saying it aloud. "Okay," she says instead, and the sound is the softest of whispers, carried away on the wind.

Her eyes close briefly, flutter open, then close again-but in that brief moment, an edge of panic makes the world seem suddenly too sharp to bear. "Keep your eyes open," he directs her, taking her chin in his hands and turning her gently to face him. "Eyes on me, you got that?"

"Mmhmm." She's fading out, shifting between the world of waking and sleep, and no matter how much he shakes her, no matter how loudly he speaks, he can't seem to hold her there.

He keeps up a steady stream of nonsensical talk, reveling in the slightest physical response from her-a raise of the eyebrow, a weary smile-but falls immediately silent when her own lips part.

Clint watches her struggle with speech in a way she-so consistently graceful, so smooth and eloquent-never has before, and it scares him more than anything else he has ever known.

Then, finally, she says, "Rokov stuck his hand down my panties before. I didn't want him anywhere near me." Clint blinks, surprised-and, inevitably, appalled; at this disgusting, despicable man; at everything Natasha has had to brave, not only now but in the past-but bites back any reply, glad that she's talking at all. Her next words stop him cold. "I pretended he was you. I pretended it was us."

"You-"

"I wanted it to be us."

Clint has been waiting so many years to hear those words that he's lost count-but not now, not like this.

"I want it to be us, too." he admits, finding her eyes and seeing all over again how terribly glazed they seem, how devoid of her usual spirit they have become. Fiercely, he adds, "It will be us. After all this shit is done."

It's only when he hears a modest cough at his shoulder that Clint realizes he and Natasha are no longer alone. "Rogers. The medics-"

"They're coming as fast as they can." Steve replies, his voice strangely feverish with worry.

"Well they need to come faster." he snaps, but his voice peters out when Natasha's hand finds his shoulder.

" _Clint._ " The look in her eyes is meaningful, and for a brief moment the color is right again-bright, and persistent. He has seen this look before-when she's trying to teach him something, or when she's berating him for letting his attention slip away; when she's correcting his mistakes; when she's denying his delusions.

"Don't you even fucking think about it," His voice is low, guttural-almost animalistic.

He slides her into his arms and holds her to his chest, as though the touch of him can weigh her down, and anchor her to this Earth.  
Her arms don't curl around his neck in response, though. She doesn't lean into him, or back. She doesn't turn her chin up to his, or glance away. She doesn't offer a wary smile. She doesn't press her head into his chest, or brush a bloodied curl from her face, or breathe a sigh.

She doesn't breathe at all.

What washes over him then is like nothing he's ever felt before-the kind of grief he has only read about in tragedies, in the silly harlequin romances he had been dared to read by a coworker; the romances Natasha had discovered in his locker, and read aloud, exaggerating the dirty parts, snorting at the sad.  
It comes over him like a bucket of cold ice water, and soon he's shivering, and quaking, and quivering and he can't stop. _It can't be real_ , he tells himself, _It can't be real._

It echoes like a horrible mantra in his head, and when Clint looks down at her face and sees those eyes-out of focus, looking forever vaguely off into the distance, he says again _It can't be real._

And then Steve or Tony or maybe one of the medics is trying to take her away from him, but he's stubborn when he wants to be-and holy fuck, he wants to be right now-and he doesn't budge.

Instead, he presses a hand to her chest and pumps and pumps and pumps, and when his lips crash down on hers, he realizes that it's the closest thing they have ever shared to a kiss.

Oh, they've kissed before, of course. They had had their fair share of undercover missions-posing as newlyweds, lovers, a loving couple. Natasha had always been better at faking. Clint was never sure what to say or what to do, but she would guide his hands to her hips until they were molded together like two pieces of the same puzzle, and their lips would fit together of their own accord.

But they had never been themselves. They had been every alias under the sun, but never this-never _them_.

It was the closest thing they had ever shared to a kiss, and Natasha would never know.

Her blood coated his hands, sticky and scarlet and sharp. He drew away, his lips tingling with their touch.

"This was my fault," he mutters, but he doesn't fight it anymore when Tony drags him to his feet, or when Natasha is bundled onto a cot and wheeled away. "This was my fault."

"Cut it with the past tense, Cupid," Tony returns, and though his voice is cutting, there's an unexpected tenderness at its root. "She's not dead yet."

She's not dead yet.

She's not dead yet.

He tells himself this on the long car ride back to base. He tells himself this as Steve murmurs indistinct comfort and Tony sets his jaw in stubborn defiance. He tells himself this as he waits on a straight-backed plastic chair for news of something, anything. He tells himself this when a nurse finds him, beckons him to come with her, her expression unreadable.

Natasha is in a hospital bed, hooked up to so many wires that Clint can't fathom in the tangle of them all where they begin and end. She looks eerily beautiful, eyes closed lightly, red curls splayed out over the pillow, a splash of color agains the endless, antiseptic white of the room.

She's alive.

She must be; he can hear the steady _beep, beep, beep_ of her heart on the monitor; can see the flicker of the green line, up, and down, and up again.  
Something like hope, but more hesitant, builds like a knot in his stomach. The nurse seems to understand, and offers him a kind smile before leaving, closing the door gently behind her.

Clint drags over a chair and collapses into it. His eyes drink her in as though it's been years since he last saw her. Already, there's more color in her cheeks.  
It doesn't seem possible that hours ago he was holding her in his arms, watching her go limp, watching the life leave her.

Tentatively, he takes her hand; it's cold, and he moves to slide it beneath the covers, but at the movement, she tenses. Her eyes flicker open, and they're exactly as he remembers them.

"Hey, Nat." he says, and he wants his voice to be warm, and welcoming, and familiar, but it catches.

"Hey, Clint." she replies; her voice is still thin, barely there-but he thinks she may be mocking him, and the realization is so wonderful that he takes a moment to drown in it. Into the silence, she adds, "Can we pretend I never said anything? I thought-"

She thought she was dying.

"You had me going for a minute," he agrees with a weak chuckle. He hesitates, then adds, "If you want to, I can. Yeah."

She arches a brow. "Do you want to?"

For a moment, he simply watches her honestly.

He sees the familiar knit of her brow, the twitch of her full lips, the mess of curls.

Looking back, he sees her as she once was, a woman cornered and almost feral with fury and fear in a church in Moscow. He sees her battle for her life-but, when that defiance matters the most, turn her eyes on the arrow pointed at her throat as though to say _Just do it._ He sees her cringe when he passes, look at him scathingly when he catches her eye. _Why did you do it?_ she asks without speaking. _Why did you bother to bring me here?_ He sees her in the training room, learning to loosen in his presence, grinning as they spar, taunting his failures and rolling her eyes as he pinpoints her own. He sees her smirk, sees the tilt of her hips when she brushes coolly past him. He sees her in the heat of an argument, forgetting for a moment her closely reined inhibitions, eyes blazing, voice a whip.

He sees _her_. He _sees._

He sees what she wants-and he sure as hell knows what he wants.

So he gathers her in his arms-gentle, skirting the wires that seem to burst from every direction-and kisses her. It's slow at first, a muted thing, and her lips part with surprise against his. He takes this as an opportunity to slip farther inside, and then everything unravels.  
And Natasha, in her hospital gown, her pale face flushed, is leaning into him, sliding her hand down his shirt, and this isn't the time but god they've been waiting so damned long.

The sound of erratic beeping causes them to break apart suddenly, flushed and dizzy. Clint's glances to the side, and a sly smile spreads slowly, mischievously, across his face. "Your heartbeat is through the roof," he says, and even though his intention is to warn her, he can't help the gloating in his tone. "Excited, are we?"  
Natasha sets her jaw stubbornly. "It doesn't matter," she breathes, already tangling her fingers in the short spikes of his hair, dragging him back toward her. This is more than Clint's ever imagined, and it's impossibly hard to tear himself from her grip.

"It matters." he says, the picture of innocent concern. When she glares daggers, he adds, "I waited ten years for you, sweetheart. Now you get to know what it's like."

For a moment, she's mutinous-but then the anger fades, and she manages a wry smile. She's still weak, after all, and there will be time-so much time-for this later.

"Seriously." he murmurs under his breath, "Don't ever do that again, alright? Don't ever scare me like that again."

"Stay here," she tells him. "Don't go anywhere."

"Oh, I'm not going _anywhere_." he replies with a chuckle that rumbles deep in his throat. "You're gonna have one _hell_ of a time getting rid of me, Ms. Romanoff."

"Good. You'd better not." she warns simply.

And he doesn't.


End file.
